Premiere cast
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- Emer Dineen - Elizabeth
- Fizz Sinclair - Alice / RA Two
- LJ Parkinson - RA One / Mary
- Isabel Adomakoh Young - RA Three / Frances
- Jacqui Bardelang - Millais / Cora
- Libra Teejay - Bessie / Queen Vic
Modest is a 2023 play by Ellen Brammar, with music by Rachel Barnes. A biographical play on the painter Elizabeth Thompson and her poet sister Alice, it includes strong elements of song, drag, music hall and gender nonconformity (the script has the Academicians portrayed by drag kings and the historically cisgender Alice presented as and played by a trans woman). [1]
It premiered at Hull Truck Theatre on 23–27 May 2023 in a production co-directed by Luke Skilbeck and Paul Smith and mounted by the theatre companies Milk Presents and Middle Child. [2] [3] This was followed by a UK tour and from 29 June to 15 July 2023 a run at the Kiln Theatre in London. [4]
Thompson's The Roll Call finds great success at the 1874 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, with many calling for her to be the first woman elected a full Royal Academician (and the first female Academician since founder members Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser in 1768). Her sister Alice and her friends Mary, Frances and Cora hope to capitalise on Elizabeth's success to further their campaign for women's suffrage, but Elizabeth refuses. Though Queen Victoria disapproves of the proto-feminist precedent set by Elizabeth's success, she buys The Roll Call for the Royal Collection, whilst working-class non-binary Bessie from a factory town writes Elizabeth fan letters, hoping to become an artist themselves. Most of the Academicians refuse even to consider Elizabeth's election despite John Everett Millais's efforts to support her and the following year her 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras is placed in the Summer Exhibition's inaccessible Lecture Room, a fate known as 'being blackholed' due to the room's lack of light.
Elizabeth continues to fall out of favour and argues with Alice before reconciling and taking her advice to exhibit outside the academy, though Alice accepts that her own hopes of being appointed Poet Laureate are futile in light of Queen Victoria's misogynist views. Exhibiting outside the RA meets with little or no success but Keeps Elizabeth (married in the meantime) in the public eye. In 1879 Millais puts her up for election as an Associate of the Royal Academy, which he assures her will be a stepping-stone to becoming a full Academician. Fearful of a woman's election, however, Millais' fellow Academicians ensure she loses by two votes while congratulating themselves on being so progressive that they have almost elected a woman to their ranks. Elizabeth withdraws from public life, whilst Bessie ceases to correspond and Elizabeth's friends and Alice resolve to continue the struggle for women's equality in political, literary and artistic life.
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One critic referred to its "repetitive scenes ... sporadically interrupted by short and uninspiring songs" [5] and another called some of the songs "strained" but called the work as a whole "distinctive in its acknowledgment of sexism across the centuries" and praised individual performances. [6] Another called the songs "strong", though critiquing the Lean In or girlboss feminism of "Bossy Women Unite", and praised "stonking performances" for saving the show "When its script falters". [7]
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly in London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate.
John William Waterhouse was an English painter known for working first in the Academic style and for then embracing the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter. His paintings are known for their depictions of women from both ancient Greek mythology and Arthurian legend. A high proportion depict a single young and beautiful woman in a historical costume and setting, though there are some ventures into Orientalist painting and genre painting, still mostly featuring women.
Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, later known as Lady Butler, was a British painter who specialised in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars. Her notable works include The Roll Call, The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever!. She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism."
She married British Army officer William Butler, becoming Lady Butler after he was knighted.
The Queen of Hearts is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She is a childish, foul-tempered monarch whom Carroll himself describes as "a blind fury", and who is quick to give death sentences at even the slightest of offenses. One of her most famous lines is the oft-repeated "Off with his/her head!" / "Off with their heads!"
Mary Moser was an English painter and one of the most celebrated female artists of 18th-century Britain. One of only two female founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, Moser painted portraits but is particularly noted for her depictions of flowers.
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. His best-known works are the lion sculptures at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.
John Gibson was a Welsh neoclassical sculptor who studied in Rome under Canova. He excelled chiefly in bas-relief, notably the two life-size works The Hours Leading the Horses of the Sun and Phaethon Driving the Chariot of the Sun, but was also proficient in monumental and portrait statuary. He is famous for his statues of Sir Robert Peel, William Huskisson and Queen Victoria. Gibson was elected a Royal Academician in 1836, and left the contents of his studio to the Royal Academy, where many of his marbles and casts are currently on display.
John Callcott Horsley was a British academic painter of genre and historical scenes, illustrator, and designer of the first Christmas card. He was a member of the artist's colony in Cranbrook.
Ophelia is an 1851–52 painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais in the collection of Tate Britain, London. It depicts Ophelia, a character from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river.
Charles Robert Leslie was an English genre painter.
Lady of the Bedchamber is the title of a lady-in-waiting holding the official position of personal attendant on a British queen regnant or queen consort. The position is traditionally held by the wife of a peer. A lady of the bedchamber would give instructions to the women of the bedchamber on what their queen wished them to do, or may carry out those duties herself.
Mary Fedden, was a British artist.
Johan / Johann Joseph Zoffany was a German neoclassical painter who was active mainly in England, Italy, and India. His works appear in many prominent British collections, including the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery and the Royal Collection, as well as institutions in continental Europe, India, the United States and Australia. His name is sometimes spelled Zoffani or Zauffelij.
Mariana is an 1851 oil-on-panel painting by John Everett Millais. The image depicts the solitary Mariana from William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, as retold in Tennyson's 1830 poem "Mariana". The painting is regarded as an example of Millais's "precision, attention to detail, and stellar ability as a colorist". It has been held by Tate Britain since 1999.
The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts (RGI) is an independent organisation in Glasgow, founded in 1861, which promotes contemporary art and artists in Scotland. The institute organizes the largest and most prestigious annual art exhibition in Scotland - open to all artists.
Lumb Stocks was a British engraver. In a long career he produced engravings from paintings by notable artists of the day.
Mabel Lee Hankey was a British artist specialising in miniature portraits painted in watercolour.
Frances Dickinson was an American physician and clubwoman who specialized in ophthalmology. Dickinson was the first woman received into the International Medical Congress (1887). In addition to being an active member of several medical societies, she was also a prominent woman's club participant, philanthropist, writer, and speaker.